Neverland
by Rune1
Summary: Harry Potter meets Peter Pan. The usual suspects are recast in Neverland.
1. Chapter 1

NEVERLAND

By Rune Scriptor

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling and J.M. Barrie are the ones calling all the shots. I'm just the wire between them.

__

"On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles.

We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more."

-J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Chapter 1

Harry Potter hovered above the field, clutching his broomstick between his thin fingers. The wind lifted his hair as he glided forward, patiently looking for the flash of sunlight on gold that would herald the passage of the Snitch.

Harry smiled and resisted the urge to let go of the broom handle. Just once, he wanted to stretch his arms out as if reaching for the edges of the sky. Just once, he—

"HARRY!"

__

"WATCH OUT!"

Instinctively, Harry dropped into a dive, body pressed against the broom, red-and-gold robes flapping around him as he fell. He heard a sharp _whoosh_ behind him and silently thanked Fred and George for their warnings. It seemed he'd just missed getting brained by a bludgeor.

As he pulled out of the dive, he cursed his own inattention. Mistakes like that could cost Gryffindor the game.

Harry set his jaw as he steadied the broom. He would _not_ be the reason Gryffindor lost to Hufflepuff.

"Daydreaming, Potter?" a voice hissed in his right ear.

Harry jumped and narrowly avoided overturning his broom. He turned in time to see the smirking, pale face of his Potions Professor as he glided by, a whistle hanging on a cord around his neck. His black robes flared out behind him, giving him more of a bat-like appearance now that he was in the air than when he was stalking through the school hallways.

Harry felt his face flush with anger and embarrassment. He wished someone else were refereeing the game; ever since Dumbledore had decreed the professors must take turns, students lived in fear that they would have to play when it was Snape's turn in the rotation.

Harry sighed. He would even take loony, melodramatic Professor Trelawney over Snape. He preferred sobbing predictions of dismemberment and death to the sarcastic barbs Snape was constantly lobbing at him.

As he watched the Potions Professor swoop below him, barely escaping a bludgeor to the face—"_Ten points from Gryffindor, Mr. Weasley!_"—Harry saw a flash of gold to the far right of the field. Instantly, he was streaking through the air in hot pursuit of the Golden Snitch.

The tiny, winged ball flew tantalizingly close, but just out of his reach. Harry heard a sharp intake of breath as the Hufflepuff Seeker came up behind him. Thrusting his body a fraction towards the tip of the broom handle, Harry stretched out his hand. The roar of the crowd faded away to a dull buzz and his vision narrowed until all he saw was the light reflecting off the Golden Snitch.

Suddenly, everything seemed to scream to a halt as something large and unyielding slammed into Harry's chest with rib-shattering force. He was hurled backwards, a scream breaking from his lips. The Golden Snitch disappeared amidst the stains of red seeping across Harry's vision.

As he tumbled off his broom, arms stretched out as if reaching for something to cling to, he saw a pair of horrified blue eyes staring down at him and a mouth open wide in shock.

Harry turned over and over in the air, falling like Icarrus toward the sea. He opened his eyes for an instant, unaware of having ever closed them, and saw, in that pain-streaked moment, arms reaching up to catch him. As he crashed into those arms, feeling one of them snap beneath the force of his weight, the black sleeves covering them were wrenched back in a burst of wind from his fall. Harry cried out in pain and horror as the Dark Mark filled his vision.

Then, as if it had never stopped, he felt again the sick sensation of falling. His stomach leapt back up into his throat and his heart tangled itself up inside the broken shards of his ribcage. The air around him was filled with flapping black robes; a low cry of pain sounded from somewhere above as the arms that held him tightened around him. Harry screamed as the pressure on his cracked ribs passed beyond the threshold of his tolerance for pain. Tears gave the world a watercolor hue as Harry's eyes rolled up into his head and he blacked out, mid-scream, the memory of the Dark Mark and two glittering, pain-blackened eyes following him into darkness.

---

Harry rocked from side to side, his arms wrapped around his throbbing chest. Someone had accidentally crashed into him during a Quidditch match. He had three broken ribs and—

"Wake up!"

—and had passed out soon after. It had all happened so quickly that no one had had time to draw out their wands. He had been caught by somebody—a teammate?—but both of them had started to fall—too much weight on the broom. And now there were bandages on his chest—and—

"Wake up!"

—and—Hands were shaking him violently.

Harry moaned in a fit of agony. "My ribs…my ribs…"

"Harry!" an exasperated voice shouted from some distance away. "_Wake up!"_

Harry jerked awake, the scream of pain dying on his lips. He noticed, with some confusion, that he was lying on the floor. Hermione was staring down at him. "What? What's happening?" His hands flew to his chest, fully expecting to find a wad of gory bandages.

"Harry!" Hermione was saying excitedly, her lacy nightgown fluttering around her. She was fingering an acorn button hanging on the silver chain around her neck. Part of Harry's brain registered that she seemed younger than usual. "Oh, Harry, the most wonderful thing has happened!"

Harry cautiously prodded his chest, ascertaining that it—Quidditch, the accident, the pain— all had truly been just a nightmare. He sighed with relief when nothing hurt or bled in response to his ginger poking. "Oh? What's happened?"

Hermione laughed and tossed back her head, bushy hair flying. "Peter Pan is going to teach us how to fly!" She pointed at the far end of the room.

Automatically, Harry turned in the direction she indicated. His eyes swept across the large, tidy room with its three nightlights blinking steadily from the walls until, abruptly, they came upon a rather strange spectacle. Harry blinked. A boy with messy, twig-filled hair was standing off to the side, garbed in thin leaves, and speaking rather animatedly to a hovering ball of light.

Harry blinked again.

"Peter," Hermione called, "this is Harry." She smiled and patted Harry on the head. "Harry, this is Peter Pan."

Harry Potter and Peter Pan stared at each other for a moment in silence.

"Peter Pan," Harry repeated in a strange tone of voice. His eyes flicked across the ball of light.

"That's Tinkerbell," Hermione said. "She's not terribly friendly, I'm afraid."

Harry stared at Tinkerbell. He thought he saw a tiny pair of wings and a stocky body amidst the twinkling. "The Golden Snitch," he muttered.

"What?" Hermione frowned.

Very calmly, Harry stood up and climbed into bed. "I've got a concussion for sure," he murmured to himself and pulled the bed sheets over his head.


	2. Chapter 2

TITLE: Neverland

AUTHOR: Rune Scriptor

Feedback: Does wonders.

Disclaimer: If they were mine, Snape would be on every other page in the canon.

NOTE: This is being posted at the urging of 2 reviews that just floated on into my inbox via ff.net. Thank you VampirePrencess & Annette Clearwater; if you hadn't reviewed, this chapter would probably still be sitting on my hard-drive moldering.

Chapter 2

"_Har_ry," Hermione said insistently. "Get _up_. Stop being ridiculous."

Harry groaned and dove further beneath the covers. "Leave me alone, Hermione. I'm trying to wake up."

"Wake up? What's the matter with you? You _are_ awake."

"No, I'm not. I'm in the Hogwarts infirmary with three broken ribs, and this is all just a morphine-induced hallucination."

"Hogwarts? Where on earth do you come up with these names, Harry? Honestly! And, when did you start using such big words—you always tease when I use them." She flipped her thick hair over her shoulders in a dignified fashion. "Now, stop being rude and tell Peter a proper hello, or else he won't teach you how to fly. We'll have to leave for Neverland without you."

Hysterical laughter bubbled out of Harry's mouth. "_Fly_?" he gasped. "_Neverland?!_ Ohhh right, because that's _Peter Pan_ over there, and I'm not Harry Potter, I suppose, because I'm…Michael…or, or John, or maybe Wendy!" He broke off in a fit of frenzied laughter.

"_Harry Jonathan Black_!" Hermione stamped her slippered feet on the ground. "Stop acting like you're an escapee from St. Mungo's!" She grabbed a pillow and began whacking him with it.

At the mention of his altered name, Harry stopped laughing. He lay there, tangled up in the sheets, the harmless blows from Hermione's pillow glancing off his shoulders. The words began rolling through his head like Quidditch players executing particularly tricky moves on their broomsticks. They never seemed to want to stay together; the 'Harry' was always getting mixed up with a 'Potter,' while the 'Black' seemed to be making towards a 'Sirius' as if its five-lettered existence depended upon hiding behind the silky dog-star. 'Jonathan' floated above it all, unfettered, decidedly superior as it twirled in various forms and cognates near the ceiling of Harry's brain.

"Black?" he finally forced out as if choking on the word.

"What's black?" Hermione asked, exasperated.

"My name…Harry. Jonathan. Black."

"Y-es, Harry. Very good. You can say your name. Let's move on to counting then, shall we?" she asked, sarcasm dripping from every syllable.

"Hermione…what's your full name?"

"Really, Harry, this insanity of yours is going on for—"

"_Please_, Hermione. Just answer the question."

She sighed loudly. "Hermione Wendy Angela Black."

"Black. _Black?_ We're related?" Harry was beginning to have a dreadful feeling about where this revelation was headed.

"Related? Harry, what is the matter with you? Did you hit your head on the ground when Peter shoved you off your bed?"

"Then we're not related?" Harry asked gleefully, the corner of his mouth twitching in a nervous tic he feared he was developing.

"_Of course we are_!" Hermione shouted, her patience finally deserting her. "I'm your sister!"

There was a moment of tense silence while Harry absorbed this information.

"Are you finished having your little break-down-identity-crises?" Hermione finally demanded.

Harry began shaking. "Oh. Bloody. Hell."

Hermione sighed again. "Harry, please—"

"I mean…Oh…Bloody…_Hell_."

"Are you through?"

"Oh…_Bloody_…H—"

"_Harry_!!!"

Harry moaned. "Who…who is my…our…f-father? Is it…is it…"

"There's no use talking to you when you're like this."

"Who is it, Hermione? _Please_! I'm going to go mad if you don't tell me!"

"I'm of the opinion that you're rather mad already," she muttered. "Our father is Sirius Black. And this is the last time I'm going to indulge you in your addle-brained inquisition."

At the mention of his godfather's name, Harry's mind reeled off in shock, leaving the rest of Hermione's sentence without an audience.

If Hermione was his sister…and their father was Sirius Black…then where, dare he ask, did Ron fit into all of this? "You can't have the two without the other," he mumbled to himself.

Gradually, Harry realized that someone nearby was whining.

He was tempted to peek out from the sheets and see who it was but a sense of mental self-preservation dissuaded him.

From the world above the bed-sheets, he heard Hermione's voice say soothingly, "No, Ron, dear. Peter Pan's here, not father. Now, get up and help me with your big brother. He's being difficult."

"Don't wanna."

"_Ron_," she admonished.

"In Neverland, when I give an order, everybody scrambles to do what I say," Harry heard Peter announce from across the room. "I'm a better leader than you, Hermione."

"Now, hold on—" Hermione began huffily.

"Ron!" Peter interrupted. Harry burrowed further beneath the sheets as the boy's voice got closer. "Get up or I won't teach you to fly, and you'll have to stay here by yourself until I decide—_if_ I decide, that is— to come back for you!"

Harry heard a hasty rustling of bed sheets and the gentle thump of two stockinged feet upon the floor.

He heard Hermione mutter "Coercion!" under her breath.

"Wha'bout Harry?" the little voice asked innocently.

Harry's eyes snapped wider at Ron's high, childish, syllable-tripping voice. He almost couldn't bear to risk a peek…and yet, he couldn't help it. Harry steeled himself and lowered the covers.

Ron blinked back at him, drowsiness and mischief lurking in his large brown eyes. "Harry's not diff'cult," he declared solemnly.

Harry groaned. His best friend talked and looked like he was no older than five. A trademark lopsided smile crossed the redhead's small features as he stared at his older brother. A smudge graced the tip of his nose. "We're going to Nev-er-land," the child said carefully. He reached for Harry's hand beneath the sheets and tugged, trying to force the older boy to his feet. "Fly!"

Resigning himself to his fate, Harry climbed out of bed and followed the five-year-old, his fingers clutched within Ron's baby hands.


End file.
